Christmas

A dance tune, the Branle de Poitou, from Arbeau's late 16th century Orchesographie used by John Rutter  in his carol Christmas night wth which our vocal ensemble Ochoeur sand in this year's carol concert in Aigues Mortes

I write on Christmas morning with the sounds of BBC Radio 3, as so often, in my ears, and the fresh memory of the Kings College Cambridge Nine lessons & carols in my mind.  The short season of Christmas music each winter is a highlight in my life, with memories stretching back to my teens with the small choir of Friends' School Saffron Walden which sang each year in Trafalgar Square and on the steps of St Pauls Cathedral.  Like so many things that used to be possible for amateur groups, these places are now no doubt far more highly regulated as performing spaces!

The Kings service was special, its centenary and Stephen Cleobury's last after over 35 years as organist/director of the choir.  I was moved to hear the choice of carols, taking in so many favourites and without the quantity modernity that has sometimes made it less easy for people like me to listen to.  The new commission this year, O Mercy Divine by Judith Weir was perfect for the occasion, and included an accompaniment by solo cello which she describes as "a musical flying carpet" for the choir to "tread and later float above".  I loved hearing Ding Dong Ding, the Harold Darke In the Bleak Midwinter, Elizabeth Poston's Jesus Christ the Apple Tree and many others that have become familiar over many years.  The choir sounded particularly good.  I wonder who will continue the tradition in future years at Kings.,
Our own Christmas concert is at present the only performance we give as Ochoeur, and for several years we have been fortunate to be welcomed in the little protestant Temple in Aigues Mortes, which has a fine acoustic and holds a cosy 100 if full, so our smaller audiences do not rattle about!  We are currently 6 singers though we are very much hoping to expand to our intended complement of 8, 2 to a part in 4-part music.  Highlights this year included  Nigel Reavley's 6-voice arrangement of Britten's Hymn to the Virgin.  and the Norwegian Ola Gjeilo's A Spotless Rose, as well as settings of In Dulci Jubilo by Gesius and Bach - the Bach is a splendid and stately setting with a running bass line.  I always find myself at a slight disadvantage since all my fellow choristers have more experience of church music in services than I do, and I am still learningvarious things about chants and so on - this year we opened with a Matins Responsory based on music by Palestrina.

More Christmas music to come before I pack away the carol parts for another year, and we're hoping to be in Lichfield Cathedral for the Epiphany carol service '(sung by their chamber choir of which our old friend Andy Dunham is a part - he used to sing in our Christmas concerts in France) before we head back to France and another interesting musical year there.

I end with another little illustration from the dance tutor Orchesographie, this one of the musician Capriol who appears in the title of the suite by Peter Warlock of tunes  taken from the book.   Happy Christmas and new year 2019 to all who read this.  A little tribute to our lovely son and kind host this Christmas, Jeff, whose life is much tangled up with drums and drumming!

Our musical life in France (and before)

As I began this Mary and I were nearing the end of another enjoyable week at Val du Séran.  Stéphane Fauth, multitalented musician and composer/arranger concerted this former farm building and has run this residential music centre for over 10 years, and I've spent a week each year there with Mary almost every year since 2010, she playing cello several sessions a day with a variety of chamber ensembles - other strings, sometimes a wind instrument or a piano or all of them.  This year it was a string quartet.  Stéphane usually finds me something to sing one session a day during the week, and this year - this time there were four Galgenlieder (literally gallows songs) a title used for a collection of rather surrealist poems by Christian Morgenstern.  When we came to France we left a rich and varied musical life behind in the UK, and had little idea what we would find here.  We had with us a collection of recorders of many sizes, some mediaeval and renaissance instruments, Mary's cello, a Yamaha electronic keyboard and a huge collection of printed music.  We had little idea what we would find to occupy us musically, and in my case at least wanted to revive singing and playing in my retirement.  After a dozen years we have both found inspiration and frustration in about equal measure, but we do have plenty of music in our lives.

Mary has joined several chamber groups (mainly now linked to the music school in Vauvert) and an orchestra linked to the very active Sommières choir.  The latter play and sing mainly 19th century operatic and instrumental stuff, which she finds if not ideal for her own taste, at least challenging.  Amazingly the choir gets regular huge audiences which is more than can be said for the Bach choir I sing in.  She has made a lot of progress playing the cello since we came, and practises much more regularly than I do!  Her greatest pleasure is probably playing baroque continuo, of which more below.

My two main interests have been singing and recorder playing.  I met Mary when we both played recorder regularly.  In England we were members of the Society of recorder players and went to Saturday play-ins as well as some summer courses like the one where we met.  No such thing here - people are not generally good at sight-reading (déchiffrage) as we were in the UK, but there are exceptions and  we have very much enjoyed playing baroque trio sonatas with friends who have a lot of professional and good amateur experience - for several years we did concerts with friends Pierre and Charles, and now we play quite often with Katharine (keyboard) and Phil (violin) for our own amusement and pleasure - we're not specially bothered about public performance.  But my singing started with a choir, Chorale Franglaise, in Lunel conducted for several years by David Austin then Philip Baxter.  We always tried and hoped to attract French members as well as Anglophone ones, but most were daunted by having to read music and few stuck with us.

Eventually we were left with half a dozen Anglophone singers in a mostly a cappella  group known as Ochoeur, which finds time to rehears regularly in the run-up to the Christmas season with a regular 'lessons &
carols' concert in a local Temple (protestant chapel).  We always mean to do more and have worked more intensively in the past, but lately other commitments and pressures have cut us down to the one pre-Christmas performance each year.  It's a pity, and maybe we'll get back to singing more.  Mary usually accompanies us for the carols which need it, as she did the Lunel choir.

My most regular choral activity now is with the specialist choir B.a.Bach based in Montpellier.  Our programmes are based around J S Bach but include his relatives and composers whose work he used.  We work at the lower 'baroque pitch' (A=415) with appropriate instruments in the main (but usually an electronic organ) and do around 3 concerts a year including motets and cantatas, as well as the occasional larger work when we can afford it!  Highlights have included the St John Passion in 2017, and we'll be performing the extended (E flat major) version of the Magnificat in 2019.  We're led by a talented conductor who lives and also works in Provence, Jean-François Héron.  He is passionate about presenting German texts well, and faces a continuing challenge getting mainly French singers to adapt to more consonants than they are used to!

Any account of our musical life would not be complete without mentioning lessons - my singing teachers and Mary's cello lessons.  And of course we listen to a  lot of music and go to concerts.  But this is enough for one post - more to follow.